For Old Time's Sake
by Judy Blue Eyes
Summary: Two-Shot. Post-series. A party, they call it. But it's just a bunch of suits in a ballroom. These people need to be woken up. But maybe so does Rory.
1. For Old Time's Sake

A/N: So I know all of my readers are going to skewer me alive for writing this without updating other things, but I couldn't get it out of my head. So here's this. One-shot, which I don't normally do, but considering how much I currently suck at updating it's probably for the best. If I get motivated again I might do more of these, which will follow up on this storyline, so if you like it, let me know! Thanks for reading.

Rory looked out the car window and wondered when the cab would come to a halt. She knew. She knew down to the second. If she'd been paying attention she could have tracked it, said three minutes and twelve seconds. There was no traffic. How that ever happened, she didn't know, but there was no traffic. And when a big yellow cab with one driver and one Rory inside drove along the streets at night with no traffic to hinder its going, it took only eight minutes and forty-eight seconds to get home. But Rory could not say how long it would be until the cab stopped, because she had not been paying attention, and the time today was all out of whack. One moment it was racing by, the next grinding to a halt. And every second since he'd put her in the cab she'd taken a breath more quickly, more slowly than the last breath, though they'd been evenly spaced. There was no ring on her finger. There was no candy on her arm. And yet she felt as though she had done something wrong, as she always felt about things like this, about things like him.

She hadn't thought anything of the party. She'd gone without a question. It was part of the job: schmoozing, making friends. And she was good enough at it. And then she'd found she was making a friend she'd already made. And the whole room spun out of control around her.

"Hi," he said from behind her. And when she turned she had to take a breath and a step back.

"Hi," she replied, unable to access the dictionary that was her brain to come up with a better response. It wasn't as though she hadn't seen him or didn't want to. But she certainly hadn't been expecting to see him here.

"Didn't know you were going to be here," he said in a fragment that broke the tension in the room.

She smiled a genuine smile without knowing it was coming, and laughed and said, "I could say the same," and, "How are you?"

"I've been fine. Alright. Good," he said haltingly, as though he couldn't make up his mind. "I've been sad, depressed, and lonely too, but that's the MO of the city."

She smiled and nodded. Then checked herself. He didn't deserve the smile and nod. "I understand," she blurted out, since there was nothing else for her to say.

"Oh come on, you've probably got the whole town talking. Everyone must want to be your best friend. I've read your pieces. And aside from that, you're you."

The hair, the eyes, the gestures. He was him. "Yup. I'm me. Just little old me."

He smiled. "You know what I mean. I've never met anyone who didn't fall in love with you the minute they saw you."

And then they both took a set back from the conversation. He hadn't meant to put it that way. "I should really go… mingle some more," Rory said to excuse herself.

"I wouldn't want to monopolize the attention of the most interesting person in this room. I'm sure all these media folks could use a little waking up."

Before he could go she stopped him with, "You never did tell me what you were doing here."

And he gave her a smirk and said, "I'm in the biz," and was gone.

And so was she, off to charm another suit. He was right. They could use a little waking up.

It was at the night's end that they next spoke. She hadn't seen him again through the whole party, but low and behold he turned up outside just as she was leaving. He was leaning against the wall of the building to her left as she came out, and before she set foot on the first of the steps that would take her to the street he had spoken, and she had stopped. Or was it that she had stopped and then he had spoken? It seemed as though she might have known he was there even before he announced his presence. But it had happened too quickly to know for sure. And today had been that kind of day. "Fancy meeting you here," was what he said around the time she stopped.

Rory turned, a gust of wind whipping pink into her cheek. "Hi again." Clever. Very clever. "I would have come to find you, but I didn't see you in there after… that first time."

"That might have been because I was out here."

She shook her head. "It's freezing out. What were you doing out here?"

But she knew the answer that was coming. "Waiting for you." On the other hand, it was sometimes nice to hear out loud. The trick to life is not to become jaded by obvious answers to stupid questions. They're the best ones around. "I didn't want to miss you. And the crowd in there was lame anyways."

She gave a little smile, but stopped short of conveying how nice it was of him to say that, how good it was of him to wait. "So."

"So."

"How is 'the biz'?" she said, lacking inspiration for small talk.

"As good as I can hope, except that I have to go to a bunch of these things… these… parties, as they call them."

"Good. Good." That was gracious. That was idiotic.

"So I see you haven't been infected with angst yet," he said with the hint of a smile. "How are you liking the city?"

"Oh, it's good. I like it, I do. I mean it's different. From everything I'm used to. But it's sort of alive in a way you don't understand until you live here. It's sort of exhilarating."

"Exhilarating?! Who has the breath to be exhilarated through all that smog?"

There was a glitch in the flow of time again and everything stopped. Rory could almost hear the shriek of the world in here ears as factories in China stopped producing to listen in on their thrilling conversation. "That… can be a bother," she said as she exhaled, just to fill the air.

"So."

"So."

"Do you want to have dinner some time?" he asked. "For old time's sake."

She nodded, smiled, beamed. "Yeah, absolutely," and she absolutely did. Dinner would be good. This could be good. This should be good. There was nothing stopping this from being good. She'd made the excuse of surprise, but in truth she had no idea why they were having such a hard time getting past hello. She took a minute to register the thought, then pulled a business card from her clutch and held it out to him. "Give me a call and we'll… set it up."

He smiled and took the card, looked at it intensely as if to inspect it. "You know I have some of these too now," he said, looking up.

"Oh?" she queried the challenge.

"They're a lot cooler than this. Who does your printing?"

"Let's see it then," she called and raised.

"Oh, sorry," he mocked. "I gave all mine out in there. I'm surprise you've even got one left to show me. Well, we can't all be winners." He stuck the card in his pocket smugly and watched as she smiled and took in the jest, but she didn't come back at him. He didn't think she was one to fold.

She folded. It was enough for tonight. The world was inside out today and she was off her game. She'd get him back at dinner. "So," she said after a while. "I'd better go."

"Yeah," he said, but neither of them moved.

"It was good to run into you."

"Yeah, defiantly." He stepped away from the wall and she almost expected him to shake her hand for a moment, but then the gesture passed. "I'll give you a call."

Rory looked at him, knowing now was the time to walk away, but instead she said, for no particular reason at all, "Sometimes I'm sorry I didn't go with you when you asked me too."

There was barely a breath before he said, "I'm not." She cast her eyes to the ground and for a minute she didn't understand, but when she looked up he was standing before her just as he had been before. She could see his breath in the air, as she could see her own. She pulled back just ever so slightly, an involuntary movement. But he half whispered to her, "For old time's sake." And somehow that made her reconsider. And then they kissed, just briefly, on the steps in the cold of winter in New York.

It ended, they pulled back, air broke in. "So I should go," she said.

"Let me get you a cab." And he'd put her in the cab, grasped the door to shut it, and produced from a pocket a card. Once she had it in her hand, she barely heard the door close, barely felt the car start forward. And then the driver asked where to? and she broke out of her trance.

The cab pulled to a halt in front of her building and Rory shoved a bill into the driver's hand and fled. The night air hit her cheeks in a blast of memory and she reached into her pocket for her cell. She was thrown. She shouldn't be this thrown. "Mom?" she said when the phone clicked into action, and there was a response from the other end. "You'll never guess who I just saw at the thing. Jess. I saw Jess. I don't know it was weird. It was… No, we talked; he was perfectly nice. I was the one who was weird… He waited for me outside after. Yeah, we're supposed to have dinner. No, yeah it'll be great. Yeah. Yeah, he looked good. I don't know; he said he was in 'the biz'. Yeah. So… We kissed."


	2. Run Away with Me to New York

Rory looked around her apartment and couldn't decide what to make of it. It was too small for two people, but too big for her alone. She was the in-between size of renters, like when you can't find a pair of shoes that fit quite right cause the store doesn't carry half sizes. There'd been a time a few weeks ago when she had just come to the city, that she'd felt alone and unsure and farther from home than she'd ever been as she'd followed the campaign trail across the country. There had been no friends and only a few trips home, one date the whole time and on that night the power went out in her building and the dinner was ruined and they almost froze. Yes, that's right. She'd tried to make dinner for someone, some guy she barely knew. It was a homey thing to do. But the city hadn't been her home. To tell the whole truth, it still wasn't. She was mostly still in that awkward, sad time, waiting for a hello from the waitress she saw every day. But the waitress did not keep track of faces, and she was lost into the crowd that was the city each time she stepped out the door. One morning she'd greeted the waitress with, "Hi, Linda," and the woman had stared back at her uncomprehendingly, as if to say, "How do you know my name?" Never mind that she was wearing a nametag, because in this town everyone wore nametags and no one ever took the time to read them.

So now there were coworkers and gala events and sometimes people remembered her name at work. So what? And in the morning when she got her coffee, Linda looked at her and recognized her, knew who she was, but refused to acknowledge her. And on the days when Rory was optimistic enough to make conversation, Linda could always tell and greeted her with that, "Don't you start!" look. Linda was her best friend in the city.

But now here, in the middle of all of this, was Jess, good old Jess. Could it get any better than this? Yes. Of course it could. She could have an apartment that wasn't a half size too big for her and a waitress who admitted to knowing her name. But she would settle, then, wouldn't she? Yes, she would. She would settle for wonderful Jess, the friendly face, the man who knew his way around this abomination of a city. Really, it wasn't so bad. It was good; it was wonderful. Well, it was pleasant. The smog didn't choke her lungs too much. No. It was just that she was new in town and there wasn't anything here for her yet but a job. And a waitress who hated her guts. What was she doing breaking the unwritten rules anyway? When in Rome.

But now there was Jess. There was Jess in the city and nothing could stop her from going to dinner with him and having a wonderful time. And if at the end of it they never spoke again she would have had such a good time she wouldn't mind it for all the fun she had. On the other hand, if at the end he asked her to another dinner, she'd be happy to eagerly accept the invitation. On the other hand, if at the end they—no. Just stop the thought right there. What are we getting ourselves into? It's just Jess. It's just to reminisce. It's just for old time's sake. It's nothing more.

Rory turned and checked herself in the mirror. What do you wear to a Catching-Up dinner? Something that makes them realize they've missed you, of course. But what do you wear to a Catching-Up dinner with Jess? What can you expect from the man? Nothing. Everything. Anything. When he says "dinner" that could mean you'll end up eating at a restaurant on the water's edge or skinny-dipping in the East River. Rory rethought her choice of earrings and removed them for something… less valuable. Lipstick: check. Clutch: check. Confidence… check?

The phone rang before Rory had time to rethink her choice of dress as well, and she knew it would be Jess calling to tell her he'd arrived. It wasn't his style to come up. So she pulled on her coat and skipped down the steps, nearly tripping twice in her nervous, careening spiral.

"So… what happened to Philadelphia?" Rory said as the waiter stepped away from the table after delivering their entrees.

"It was time to go," Jess said, cryptic as ever.

Rory smiled weakly. He'd been the one to ask her here right? Had she imagined that? Had she really begged him to come out? Had she been that desperate? It wasn't out of the realm of possibility.

She glanced around the restaurant again. Nice. She'd never been here before. Not surprising. She'd never been anywhere before. She looked back to her food.

"How are you liking the city?" he asked in a lost, polite sort of way.

Rory set her fork down with a sort of dismay. "Fine. It's… very…"

"Lonely?" he stopped her, and she sighed and nodded her head. "I thought you'd say that."

"What does that mean?" she asked, suddenly indignant.

Jess smiled a little at her overreaction. "Nothing, Rory," he said and his voice broke with a small laugh. "It is lonely. Why d'you think I like it so much?"

Rory exhaled and relaxed. "I don't know. I don't know if I like it here. I mean I'm sure it'll get better. I'm just— I'm new in town, is all."

"You'll be fine!" he said boisterously, and she knew he was humouring her.

The conversation took on a thoughtful silence. And then Rory began thinking. About the day Jess had come back to get her, back to Yale. She'd made some mistakes in her life. That couldn't be denied. She didn't regret any of them. They were a part of her. She never wondered what would have happened if she hadn't stolen a Yacht and dropped out of college. She had. And that was the way it was. But sometimes she found herself wondering what would have happened if she had run away with him that day, at the start of summer, and not looked back. It wasn't that she was unhappy with her life—most of the time. But. It was something she hadn't done.

"You know," she said with a bubbly, nostalgic smile spread across her face, "I was just thinking about that time you came to Yale."

Jess looked down, took a breath and shook his head. "Yeah, sorry about that."

"No!" Rory stopped him. "I mean I was just thinking… sometimes I wonder what it would have been like, you know? If I had said yes. I just… sometimes I'm not so sure about all this. And I wonder… what if? What if...?"

"I don't," Jess said solidly, snapping Rory out of her trailing thoughts

"What?" she said, looking up.

"It was wrong of me to come, and wrong of me to ask you that. You belonged in Stars Hollow with your mom. And at Yale. You _belonged_ at Yale."

Rory smiled. "Yale was good. I loved Yale," she said. _And I guess I owe that to you, too, _she thought. But she decided against saying that out loud. "Sometimes I just wonder," she said instead.

Jess nodded. "Sometimes I wonder what would have happened…"

"What would have happened…?" Rory queried.

"If I hadn't been so stubborn," Jess said, picking at his food. "If I hadn't run away like that."

"You wouldn't have Philadelphia," Rory said with a smile.

Jess smirked. "Yeah. Philadelphia."

"What?" she asked, but he shook his head. "Jess, what?"

"Philadelphia was nothing. I'm in New York now! Good ol' lonely New York!"

"Jess, what happened in Philadelphia?" Rory asked, suddenly knowing not everything was as it seemed.

Jess shook his head. "Does it matter?"

"Jess…"

"Rory!" he stopped her, stood up, and reached down to take her hand. "Run away with me to New York," he said.

Rory looked around the restaurant and saw that people were beginning to look in their direction, but she could not move, and she did not seem to care about the people. "We're in New York," she said with a shake of her head and a disbelieving smile. And she almost knew it was coming when he said:

"This? This is not New York."


End file.
